Search

Site Contents

A priest pleads guilty in Victoria regarding two girls

By a Broken Rites researcher, article posed on 4 November 2018

Fr Bernard Mahony, aged 75, a priest in the Sale diocese (covering the Gippsland region in the state of Victoria), pleaded guilty in court on 2 November 2018 regarding indecent assaults of two girls, committed 40 years ago in one of Mahony's earlier parishes. In the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court at Morwell, a magistrate sentenced him to a wholly suspended sentence of six months.

In December 2016, Fr Mahony celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination as a priest. According to the annual editions of the Australian Catholic Directory, some of Fr Mahony's parishes (during his career) have included Neerim South, Maffra, Bairnsdale and (most recently) Pakenham. He retired from parish work in 2017.

The matter of Father Mahony's past arose when each of the two victims spoke privately to a commissioner from Australia's national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The matter was then investigated by a detective from the Sexual Offences and Child-abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT) of the Victoria Police (based at Bairnsdale). The police filed charges against Bernard Mahony in the magistrates court.

The court case was regarding incidents which occurred while Mahony was based at St Ignatius' Church in Neerim South between 1978 and 1981.

1398 reads

About Us

Since 1993, Broken Rites Australia has been researching the cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Too often, the church supported the offending clergy while ignoring the victims. For example, Broken Rites has shown how the church shielded the criminal priest Father Gerald Ridsdale for 32 years without reporting his crimes to the police. Finally, in 1993, some Father Ridsdale victims contacted the police. These victims also contacted the newly-formed Broken Rites.
This photo demonstrates why Broken Rites was needed. In the photo, Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale (left, in sunglasses and hat) walks to court, accompanied by his support person (a bishop), when Father Ridsdale was pleading guilty to his first batch of criminal charges in May 1993. But no bishop accompanied the victims, who felt deserted by the church leaders. Therefore, since 1993, Broken Rites research has supported many of the Catholic Church's victims, as shown on this website. Read More